In road traffic, the traffic density of motor vehicles continuously rises. The road network is approaching its limits of extension. This leads to an accident risk which rises analogously hereto. Although the accident risk can be minimized by means of modern driver assistance systems and the like, it cannot be eliminated, however. In the case of a traffic accident, in particular, rapid medical aid for damaged persons on the spot is required, in particular. The field of use of the present invention extends to a system-related accident logistic created for just this purpose.
In the general prior art, an automatic emergency call system with the designation “eCall” is known in which a message to an emergency call center is automatically transmitted in the case of an accident. For this purpose, the vehicles are equipped with electronic devices, so-called accident monitoring units. The accident monitoring unit is an electronic box connected to the vehicle electrical system, to the input of which an accident sensor is connected. In the simplest case, the accident sensor can be an acceleration sensor which outputs an accident signal above a predeterminable threshold value of a negative acceleration of the vehicle which is above the negative accelerations caused by the normal braking forces of the vehicle. Following this, the accident monitoring unit determines the current position of the vehicle by the connected positioning system, preferably the GPS positioning system of the vehicle navigation. This information is automatically supplied in the form of an emergency call to the emergency call center which clarifies the situation and, if necessary, requests help nationally and internationally. By knowing the accurate accident location and additional information such as personal data, time of accident and the like, the rescue forces can act optimally. Apart from an activation of the accident help by automatic sensor system, manual triggering by emergency call key in the vehicle is also provided. In addition, there is the possibility that the emergency call center can establish voice contact with the passengers in the vehicle in order to obtain, for example, further information on the severity of the accident. For this purpose, and for the purpose of transmitting the emergency call to the emergency call center, a mobile radio unit is also required which is connected to the accident monitoring unit. Optionally, it is possible to transmit data from other vehicle safety systems such as airbag equipment, safety belt sensor, rollover sensor, which allow conclusions about the severity of the accident event and the number of passengers.
EP 1 814 093 A1, which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a generic system and method. Immediately after the emergency call is triggered, the geographic accident coordinates, together with identification data of the vehicle are transmitted in the form of a digital data message digitally from a mobile radio unit via a mobile radio network to the central call unit. For this purpose, the SMS standard can be used, for example. The data thus transmitted are processed by the central call unit to form an advisory image and provided on an access-protected Internet page which is provided with graphical map material from which it can be seen where the vehicle is located. In addition, supplementary information can be transmitted by a telephone call to a local emergency call answer desk of the vehicle or by a central emergency call answer desk which informs the local rescue coordination center by a telephone call. The advisory image is here interrogated via the Internet by the locally responsible local rescue coordination center after authentication at the Internet server.
The disadvantageous factor in this technical solution is found to be the completely graphical communication by advisory image which complicates the transmission of important additional information because of the graphically defined data format. Furthermore, an Internet access and further equipment is required.